The publicity for the historian James Holland’s new book, the first in a planned trilogy, breathlessly boasts that this is “the second world war as you’ve never read it before”. While the hype threatens to overwhelm the (considerable) degree of revelation within, Holland’s impeccably researched and superbly written account of the years 1939-41 skewers a number of myths about the early years of the second world war, not least that of invincible Nazi superiority and comparative Allied incompetence. In fact, Holland makes clear that the Axis alliance between Germany and Italy was always strained, not least because the Italian war ministry closed promptly at 3pm each day, and the British forces boasted a mechanised army and most of the world’s merchant shipping. Ending with the Nazi invasion of Russia, Operation Babarossa, and shortly before Pearl Harbor, Holland’s fascinating saga offers a mixture of captivating new research and well-considered revisionism. The next two volumes should be unmissable.

The War in the West is published by Bantam (£25). Click here to order it for £20